Cancer Misdiagnosis Lawsuit in Maryland

Approximately 1.5 million Americans will die from cancer this year. One in four of us will eventually die from cancer. This insidious disease is the leading cause of death in women between 4-79 and men between 60-79.

These statistics make you want to crawl into a hole. But the news is getting better. Doctors are finding new ways to cure and treat cancer every year which is leading to marked increases in survival rates. Much of the success in the fight against cancer involved the development of therapies that stop cancer in its tracks.

These new treatments have, paradoxically, lead to more cancer misdiagnosis lawsuits. Why? Because most of these new modern therapies allow you to beat cancer are not pills you pop that lead to an immediate cure no matter what. Hopefully, we will get to this point one day. But where we are now is that modern treatments give us the tools to eradicate and defeat cancer if caught early enough.

It used to be doctors could miss a cancer diagnosis and defend the case at trial with a cynical but effective argument: "Well, the patient would have died anyway."

Today, for many types of cancers, survival rates show that catching it early enough and getting the most up-to-date treatment in many cases will make it far more likely than not that the patient will survive. This is why an effective diagnosis is critical to our enjoying the great fruits that modern medicine has brought us to fight back against the wretched disease.

The reality is that the span of time a cancer victim waits for a proper diagnosis after a misdiagnosis or after a doctor's failure to diagnose is essential and can often be the difference between life and death.

If you or someone you love has been harmed as a result of a cancer misdiagnosis in Maryland, you may be eligible to file a lawsuit for money damages for your lost wages, medical bills, and, most importantly, your pain and suffering. Fill out today our free malpractice consultation form and get information on your options from an experienced Maryland cancer misdiagnosis attorney. To speak to a lawyer even more quickly, call us at 800-553-8082.

Cancer Misdiagnosis Is Far Too Common

Misdiagnosis is a pandemic. The two most commonly misdiagnosed diseases are our two most deadly: cancer and coronary artery disease.

In 2014, the Journal of Clinical Oncology published a study that cancer misdiagnoses occur a stunning 28 percent of the time. This is an incredible statistic. This number rose to 44 percent for some types of cancer. Which cancers are the most frequently misdiagnosed? The study found that lymphoma, breast cancer, sarcomas and melanoma top the list. Read up on these cancers and you will find a leitmotif: your best chance of beating these cancers is to catch them early.

Are all of these misdiagnosis errors, how many are viable medical malpractice claims? Clearly, there are vast complexities associated with the development of a disease like cancer. Not every misdiagnosis should lead to a malpractice claim. You cannot say that there is compensable damage or injury in negligent misdiagnosis of cancer.

But the real problem is not that too many cancer misdiagnosis cases find the way to litigation. In fact, the opposite is true. In the vast majority of clear-cut cancer misdiagnosis death cases, the family does not seek to hold the doctor responsible. Our problem is cancer diagnosis cases is not too many lawyers -- it is too few. When doctors know they will be held accountable, they raise their games which helps prevent the same thing from happening to someone else.

In a malpractice suit based on misdiagnosis of or failure to diagnose cancer in Maryland, the victim or the victim's family's attorney must prove three things:

Duty. The doctor owed a duty to the patient to conform to the applicable medical standard of care. The duty of care owed to an individual in the medical context is based primarily on the existence of the physician-patient relationship. If you have a question as to whether was a duty or doctor-patient relationship because the doctor was on-call or there is some other issue about the relationship between the patient and the physician, the Maryland Court of Appeals opinion in Sterling v. Johns Hopkins is instructive. But, in the vast majority of cases, the issue of duty is not a problem. In Maryland, the question of whether there is an obligation on the part of the health care provider is made by the judge long before any trial begins.

Breach. The doctor's failure to conform to the applicable medical standard of care. Before initiating litigation, Maryland law requires that an expert medical doctor outline in writing what a doctor is needed to do and who the doctor failed to do what he should have done. The majority of cancer misdiagnosis cases that find their way to the courtroom hinge on this question: did the doctor make a mistake that a reasonably prudent doctor would not have made?

Damages. The injury or death was "proximately caused" by the doctor's mistake. As we talked about above, sometimes in cancer misdiagnosis cases, the doctor cannot avoid conceding that a mistake was made.

The settlement and trial value of some cancer misdiagnosis claims in Maryland are in the millions.

So, instead, they argue causation which in most of these cases means that the patient would have died or suffered the same injuries even if the diagnosis was made when it should have been made. Our lawyers frequently find ourselves on this "causation battlefield" not just in failure to diagnose cancer cases but in all different types of medical malpractice cases. The good news is that if the battle is being fought on this turf, the doctors are already in a position of weakness. If you are making the "Sure, I screwed up, but it does not matter" defense, you are already behind the 8-ball.

Trial and Settlement Value of Cancer Misdiagnosis Verdicts

The median malpractice verdict in a cancer-related cases is $1.75 million. The average verdict is much higher. The vast majority of these are a failure to properly diagnose cancer cases.

This does not tell you a ton about the value of your claim. If you look at our pages on specific types of cancers (listed below), many of them involve cancer-specific average settlement and verdict statistics which will be somewhat more illuminating. Still, the reality is that these cases are extremely fact unique to the individual facts of that case. So matching up like settlements and verdicts is only useful to a point.

The cancer misdiagnosis attorneys at Miller & Zois have experience handling medical malpractice case from start to finish. We have had a history of success. We have the right experts and the resources and experience to put you in a position to win your case and get the compensation you richly deserve. There are no fees or expenses unless we win a financial recovery for you.

We serve the following localities: Baltimore; Prince George's County including Bowie, Laurel, Landover, Hyattsville; Anne Arundel County including Glen Burnie; Baltimore County including Cockeysville, Glyndon, Hunt Valley, Jacksonville, Lutherville-Timonium, Owings Mills, Parkville, Reisterstown, and Towson; Carroll County including Westminster; Frederick County including Frederick; Harford County including Abingdon, Bel Air, Belcamp, and Forest Hill; Montgomery County including Germantown and Rockville; Howard County including Ellicott City and Columbia, Washington, D.C. and Washington County including Hagerstown.